Ubuntu is an extremely commonly used server OS, if that's the question.

According to the first line of the press release: "Ubuntu, the platform used in the majority of cloud deployments worldwide".

Really? Huh.

Really, basically every server I see is either Ubuntu or Centos. Very few Debian. With containers is different, who packaged the container for a given service wins. Example: Elastic uses Debian for their docker images on docker hub.

See also the results of this survey https://brashear.me/blog/2015/08/24/results-of-the-2015-slas...

It begins to be old but this section is telling "Which Linux distribution do you primarily use on your server computers?"

    Distro  #resp  %resp  prev year
    Ubuntu  633    34%    27%
    Debian  539    29%    31%
    CentOS  214    12%    15% 
    ...

Not a large poll but I didn't find anything better in a quick search on Google.

Doesn't that poll contradict your "very few Debian" statement?

In part yes, but I'm a developer so I'm probably seeing those new Ubuntus that made Ubuntu overtake Debian. If I were an op I'll probably have a more balanced view.

Furthermore the sample is relatively small and my own sample is at least 100x smaller.

CentOS is in a tricky position with regard to ALPN/http2 support--there's absolutely nothing on the horizon. A continuing shift to Ubuntu in the webserver space is almost certain in the mid-term.

How many companies are moving to ALPN/http2? AFAIK, they're still pretty fringe.

I've seen it used in a big financial firm that processes card-holder data, but they were phasing it out in favor of Redhat. Still, Ubuntu is a solid choice for servers I believe, it seems to have fallen out of favor in some places though.

Second your desktop comment, Unity is unusable for me.

Okay.

Yeah, it wasn't even Unity. I prefer i3 anyways. It's more that I like the bleeding edge (I need it for a lot of stuff), and I hate having to re-install every six months.

I always thought it's mostly used on the server. It's my go to dist on Digital Ocean for instance.

I've used Linux for a very long time. Started with Slackware on floppies. Used Red Hat and derivatives for a long time, including at some large companies.

Nowadays I'm mostly with small, early stage companies in the Silicon Valley. From what I've seen in this environment, the OS of choice in production (cloud instances) is almost overwhelmingly Ubuntu.

I started out by downloading a very minimal Slackware distro on a 2400baud dial up Internet connection. A few months later I bought Slackware (full) on about 50 floppies - I felt like a rich man having all of Slackware available. Good times.

I am using it on the server because of LXD.

On the desktop, however, I use Debian Testing instead. I am waiting for the day when I can use LXD on Debian out of the box.

Been using Ubuntu LTS (NEVER the October releases) in production for years. As smooth as Debian for upgrading.

If you're breaking your system every six months, that's probably because you're using the October releases instead of sticking to the April ones (which are usually the LTS ones and have fewer experimental packages).

My rule of thumb is to only set up October releases for playing around and getting a feel for what's coming down the pipe, and NEVER use them for production. Only the .04 ones.

April (x.04) releases on even years are LTS. Not the odd ones.

I did say "usually". It's not as if I go about upgrading servers every season, that would be insane.

Oh, wait, this is the MEAN stack age :)

I use the latest version (a month or two after release) on my personal computers and the latest LTS on all my servers, and it's been very good so far.

Really? when I tried that, I had to reinstall every six months or it would stop working.

Really? Hmm, I've been upgrading the same installation since 10.04 or something, it's been working well. However, I did create a list of scripts at some point to make reinstallation a one-command affair:

https://www.stavros.io/posts/provisioning-your-computer-one-...

How would it "stop working"? I've done re-installations here and there, but I can't think of a single time that it just "stopped working". And yes, after a couple months I usually do an in place upgrade for my laptops, desktop, and servers that have all been running Ubuntu for a few years.

Well, usually everything breaks, rendering the system unusable, requiring a reinstall. And than there was that time where the new kernel (somewhere in 3.x, IIRC) refused to boot on my setup (I'm running Intel x86-64, so nothing uncommon). But that only happened once.

For what it's worth, I've had server installs that were upgraded 10.04 > 12.04 > 14.04 > 16.04 and they're fine.